On the Relationship Between and
Theory, Measurement, and Early Evidence for the Psychological Mechanism
Wednesday, 12 November 2025
Does Barbour’s taxonomy exist in reality? If so, why do people differ in their mental models?
The goal is to illustrate the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible for the formation of the mental models.
Pillar 1: Theory
If it exists, how can one systematically operationalize it for empirical research?
The goal is to quantify qualitative distinctions of the mental models.
Pillar 2: Measure
Then, what does it predict?
The goal is to investigate whether the mental models can predict how people evaluate the utility of specific scientific and religious explanations.
Pillar 3: Mechanistic Testing
Cognitive elements: cognitive flexibility, epistemic belief.
Motivational elements: social identity, political ideology, moral belief, epistemic needs and motives.
Differences in cognitive and motivational aspects here pave the way for explanatory coexistence (Legare, Evans, Rosengren, & Harris, 2012; Legare & Gelman, 2008).
Explanatory coexistence can occur because and
have differential utility (Davoodi & Lombrozo, 2022) and thus are processed differently (Van Leeuwen, 2014).